From romantic comedy to razor-sharp satire to moments of quiet reflection, Duane Simolke’s award-winning tales transform a fictional West Texas town into a tapestry of human experiences.
“A lush tangle of small-town life branches out in this engrossing collection of short stories.” –Kirkus Reviews.
“If you liked WINESBURG, OHIO…rejoice.” –Watchword.

Syndey Vail enters lawyer-cum-detective Shep Harrington's life in a cloud of dust and vanishes just as quickly, leaving behind two very different but strangely connected things: a chimpanzee and a murder.
Chain Thinking is a whodunit with a heart and a mystery with a message. Once the mystery is solved, there's a whole lot more left to think about. Shep finds his answers. Will you find yours?

Walt Johnson has been a rolling stone most of his life, moving from town to town and living on the edge of homelessness. Now he has run out of time as lung cancer has left him only months to live. Walt begins a quest to find the son with whom he lost contact decades earlier. Out of money, he gets a job at a small-town restaurant in an attempt to save enough to buy a bus ticket to find his son.

Disillusioned with her life as a lawyer in New York City, Karen B. Clark impulsively takes off for a convention in Chicago. There she meets another woman who shares her name,"K.B." When Karen learns that K.B. is dead, she decides to seize the moment and assume K.B.'s identity. But in her new setting, a small town in Wisconsin, she soon uncovers terrible secrets that lead her to fear for her life.

Welcome to an alternate reality. "11-11-11" manages to tell it like it is by telling it like it isn't. This not what actually happened during 2011. But what unfolds is not more implausible. Nor is it less implausible. Dark, ironic, witty, at times surrealistic, 11-11-11 is satire that is both sad and funny and rings very true.

The DuBois family was one of the families who pioneered Vesper, Missouri. Martha and her friend Evelyn are only two of many elders who command the use of manners and respect. Do not overstep or ignore using manners, or you may be a dinner guest. Martha Dubois is a woman of means, yet very frugal.....as she recycles everything. Follow 'The Recyclist' as this is ONLY the beginning of your adventure.

Rev. Jonah Newman becomes the interim pastor of a congregation where the previous pastor's counseling ministry caused too many church and community members to be ready to cast the first stone. Newman must contend with townsfolk afraid he has listened to revealing counseling session tapes and with the unsettling idea that the previous pastor's untimely death may not have been an accident.

A West Texas librarian makes fun of herself and the other people in her town, while writing about her reasons for wanting to lose weight. This short story also appears in The Acorn Gathering, copyright 2002.